The one with the half-assed alchemy class

Kit woke up shortly after sunrise. When she noticed that Geralt still held her tightly pressed to his body, she wiggled to turn around to face him. One look into his tired eyes told her everything she needed to know.

"Thank you for staying," she mumbled while nuzzling into the crook of his neck. Geralt put his hand on the back of her head and stroked through the soft hair.

"How do you feel?" She hesitated before she answered.

"Exhausted. Empty." She sighed. "Miserable. Scared."

Geralt's heart sank. What could he possibly do about this? He had an intense urge to hold her even tighter. He could not begin to imagine what she was going through.

"I'm better now," she added. "And I'm so sorry for burdening you with my crap. I was alone in my head with whatever's happening for just two days and look what that got me." Her voice sounded weak, as if she was about to crumble.

"Wish you'd told me immediately," he mumbled into her hair.

"My problems shouldn't be yours. I'm asking so much of you already. Can't unload everything on you. That's just not okay." Her fingers had started to trace random patterns on his chest.

"You ask for nothing that I'm not willing to give anyway," he whispered, remembering everything she had given him in return. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

Geralt felt her nod.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I'll probably be in a horrible mood for a while. Just ignore whatever I say, pretend I'm certifiably insane."

He hummed. "You're the only person I know who comes with instructions." He squeezed her tightly and pressed a kiss on the crown of her head.

"I promise I'll try to be better by tomorrow." She sniffed.

It was nearly evening when a knock on the door startled Geralt out of his thoughts. He had been trying to finish some paperwork while Dandelion sat next to him, working on a new piece. The tension in the room was nearly tangible. Neither of the two men was able to concentrate on what they were doing.

Geralt opened the door to Regis who entered without further invitation.

"Did you find anything?" Geralt did not waste any time on politeness. He was too tired for that.

Regis shook his head. "Just like you said, there was nothing. I could not trace the faintest whiff of another world. I sorry, Geralt." Regis, ever as empathetic, lowered his gaze.

"Thank you for trying anyway." Geralt felt his shoulders slump that he had been squaring in anticipation of the dreaded news.

"Geralt, if… if you'll allow me, I would like to explore another option. I came across this not long ago and just read up on it again. It won't be of any help in terms of returning her home but perhaps it can bring us closer to the answer, to find out what exactly happened here."

Geralt clenched his teeth and tried to swallow his disappointment. What was the point of anything if the smartest, most educated man he knew could not figure it out?

"What exactly do you want to attempt?"

"It is a simple ritual. It should enhance any residual components of her home world, any particle of foreign energy. Maybe that will tell us something. Maybe it won't. In any case, I have with me what is necessary. So, if she is willing to try…"

Geralt went upstairs, still wondering if this was a good idea, to find Kit scribbling in her notebook. When he pointed out in vague terms what Regis had proposed she just shrugged, got off the bed and followed him downstairs. Her face was not puffed anymore, her eyes not red from crying anymore. She looked distant and indifferent, head hanging low.

"I remember you," Kit said upon discovering Regis in the dining room. "I wanted to thank you but you were already gone."

"Disappearing is a specialty of mine, please pardon my rude behavior." He bowed stiffly. "My name is Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy."

"Well, since I've been told that you prepared a little magic trick for us, you shall be forgiven, Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy." Her attempt at irony failed.

"Regis will do." The vampire smiled.

"I'm Kit by the way. Just Kit, nothing else," she informed him. Geralt suddenly realized that he had never asked her for her family name. Not that it mattered anymore. This family of hers was now out of reach. "So what's it gonna be?"

"A trace ritual. I would like to ask you to drink what I prepared in this vial," Regis pulled out a small vial with a red liquid in it, "and then…"

Kit had already snatched the vial from his hand and downed it immediately.

"Tasty. Strawberry?" Her voice remained hollow.

Regis was at loss for words. "Do you always just drink what a stranger offers to you?" He looked at her curiously.

"No, only if it comes from a vampire who has previously returned lost things to me."

Regis glanced at the witcher and his bard in surprise.

"I didn't say anything," Geralt and Dandelion said at the same time.

"Then how does she know…" Regis was about to ask.

"You are pale, you have oddly sharp teeth and," Kit pointed at the floor, "you have no shadow unlike everybody else in this room."

"Just how many of my books have you read?" Geralt asked rather impressed.

"Not that many but apparently all the right ones. Shall we go on then?" Kit asked lackluster. "I'd like to go back feeling sorry for myself, if the gentlemen don't mind."

Dandelion winced. Geralt had not told him what Kit had shared with him the previous evening so the bard still assumed that his accusation was the reason for her sadness.

"Of course. Just sit on the table if you please," Regis ordered, still dumbfounded by her recklessness and apparent disinterest in the fact that he was a vampire. He emptied out the fruit bowl that usually occupied the center of the large table. After rummaging through various of his coat pockets, he pulled out an assortment of herbs that he poured into the empty bowl. Using one of the candles on the table, he set the mixture on fire and placed the bowl next to Kit.

"We need some blood, just a few drops to be spilled into the fire." Regis took out a little scalpel from a leather pouch. "Geralt, would you be so kind?"

Geralt nodded and took the scalpel from him, knowing quite well how Regis felt about blood. Without being asked to, Kit held out her left hand and sliced the side of her thumb on the small, sharp blade before Geralt could even attempt to take her hand. "My thumb always bleeds like crazy whenever I cut myself with the bread knife," she explained without any enthusiasm. "You'd think I'd eventually learn my lesson but no, I keep making that same mistake over and over again…"

Kit stayed unfazed when the blood started to trickle out of the wound. The fire whizzed and turned blue for an instnace before calming down again while Kit pressed her lips to her bleeding thumb.

"And now?" Geralt asked.

Regis stood perfectly still with his eyes closed. The fire died down after just a few minutes. Nobody had uttered a word.

Finally, Regis opened his eyes.

"It is strange, very strange indeed," he muttered, more to himself than to the others.

"We already knew that things were strange. Didn't need a burning fruit bowl to figure that out," Kit sarcastically commented, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I have no filter today. So sorry." Embarrassed, she looked to the ground. Still, Geralt saw the tears welling in her eyes.

But Regis had not paid any attention. He continued, louder this time: "Maybe you already know this but just in case the books skipped over this part: I am a higher vampire. Each of my kind has a special gift that we refine over time. Mine is empathy. It allows me to feel and see things that are not obvious. I've been in this world for so long. The number of encounters with other beings, that were brought here by the conjunction, has been decreasing since, I assume, they are simply dying out. But there is one thing that I noticed they all had in common: They all had a connection to their old world. Sometimes it was a faint whiff of their home world that I could still smell on them, some had an aura surrounding them that made them stick out like a dandelion in a field of poppies. Imagine it as an invisible umbilical cord tying them to their world even after they had been pushed out of it into this new one. The descendants of these old creatures do not have it since they have been born here and have never known anything other than this world - higher vampires being the one exception to that rule. But the old ones, the original ones, they all have it. Kit, however… All ties to her world have been cut - no, actually, let me rephrase this, since I believe my initial judgement is not at all accurate: There are no ties. There possibly never were. This ritual should have made the smallest trace of your world visible to me but it did do no such thing. Nothing at all. It is as if you never came from a different world at all."

"What are the odds of the ritual having gone wrong?" Geralt asked, still trying to understand what his friend had just told him.

"Small, next to non-existent. It is not exactly complicated. And I should not have needed it in the first place. The absence of any trace of another world already struck me as odd when we met yesterday so I did not expect any other outcome even though I hoped things would develop differently."

"But… It can't be. I know I have lived in another world. I even have proof. My clothes, my running shoes, it's all upstairs," she croaked desperately while gesticulating with her hands only to realize her thumb was still bleeding.

"Kit, I did not mean to accuse you of lying. Not at all. But something just does not add up."

Geralt fished a bandage out of a drawer.

"There is just nothing he-" Regis suddenly stopped midsentence and looked at her in bewilderment.

"Oh, I know that expression. Regis, old boy, something is going on and you will tell us what!" Dandelion, who had remained silent the entire time, exclaimed, an excited grin plastered on his face.

"Something just changed." Regis watched puzzled as Geralt tied the bandage around Kit's thumb.

"Your stare is making me feel uncomfortable, Regis," Kit complained. Geralt let go of her hand and she looked at his handywork.

Regis took no notice of what she had said. "Geralt, touch her again," he commanded. So the witcher did. Nothing happened. "Let go," Regis ordered once again. "Interesting," he said to himself.

Three pairs of eyes looked at each other as if the vampire had gone insane.

"Be a darling, take my hands," he finally asked. She did. Again, nothing happened.

"Very curious. Now you, Dandelion."

Dandelion looked at Kit as if asking for permission, so she held her hands out for him to touch. A few seconds passed. "Oh!" the bard exclaimed suddenly.

"What? What happened?" she and Geralt asked in unison.

"I don't know. It feels weird. Good but weird. My skin is tingling a little."

"So it's not just me?" Geralt asked incredulously.

"I guess not," Dandelion replied, letting go of her hands slowly, looking at her in astonishment.

"Not just you what?" Kit looked from Dandelion to Geralt and back. "What is going on?" She sounded quite frustrated.

"When Geralt told me that your touch was special, I admit, I just thought he hadn't gotten laid in a long time. Which, by the way, was an accurate assumption. But I can feel it too. And just last night I…"

"Shut up, nobody wants to hear that." Geralt shot him a grim glance.

"Regis?" All heads simultaneously turned towards the vampire. He smiled.

"It seems that the mystery of your origin I cannot solve. But we now know that you are a conductor. How very interesting."

"What exactly is it that I conduct? I see no orchestra."

Regis shook his head. "I don't know what an orchestra is, but you, my dear, conduct energy. Whenever someone touches you, the energy around you changes. Or, at least, whenever a human touches you. It was not working with me. Very peculiar indeed." He looked at her like a puzzle to be solved. "But the strength of the reaction seems to depend on who you interact with. It was much more immediate and forceful with Geralt. Still, all things considered, it is a very subtle reaction even when it has been amplified through this ritual."

"So, she is a sorceress after all?" Dandelion wondered.

"No," Geralt claimed adamantly.

"No," Regis agreed. "Magic has, how can I put this? It has a special flavor. Depending on who wields it, it changes. But this energy is untouched. And unlike magic it is not coming from our sphere, that I can say with certainty. Most curious."

For a moment they all stayed silent as neither of them knew what to do with this new information.

Then Kit slid off the table. "Guess I'm Cyclops," she said absently, looking at her hands.

Three baffled faces stared at her.

"You're not a cyclops, silly. Even I know they only have one eye," Dandelion chided her.

"No, not that cyclops. He's… How do I explain this? He's is a fictional character from a narrative, an alternate version of my world where some people are born with special mutations that give them very diverse powers. One can bend metal to his will, another one can move so fast that you can't even see him. There is a girl that can walk through walls and fall through floors and many more. One is called Cyclops. He has to wear special glasses because he can emit laser beams, that is, blasts of energy from his eyes, strong enough to turn buildings to dust. The glasses capture this energy so he doesn't hurt anyone and allow him to release it in controlled quantities if he has to fight. Anyway, the relevant part is that this force is not coming from within him because that would be ridiculous. The human body can't even produce these insane amounts of energy. His eyes are basically portals to another world and that is where the energy is drawn from. Maybe it's the same with my hands but just a much weaker version of it? And hopefully much less destructive." Kit's excited speech was followed by silence until Geralt cleared his throat.

"Not just your hands."

"No?" She looked at him questioningly.

"Everything."

"Oh?" She still looked at her hands. "It doesn't hurt though, does it?" Suddenly Geralt could see fear written all over her face.

"No, not at all, quite the opposite," he tried to calm her. As if wanting to prove it, he took her hand and smiled.

"There is just one thing that I don't understand," Dandelion wondered aloud. "Why has nobody else noticed this? Why was Geralt, until now, the only person to be aware of all of this?"

"Because until just a few minutes ago he was the only person to ever touch me since I got here." Kit shrugged. "I hate being touched by strangers."

"I seem to recall…," Dandelion admitted a little ashamed of himself.

"Actually, no, that's not true," she suddenly remembered. "At the wine festival there was a maid who helped me dress. She did touch me. She was wearing gloves though. And I guess a couple of people touched my hands briefly when you introduced me to them." Kit furrowed her brow. "But those were quick kisses on the hand, nothing more. So, if whatever this is takes a few seconds before it… starts, then they wouldn't have noticed." Kit shuddered. "This whole kissing strangers' hands thing is something that should be reconsidered anyway. It's not very hygienic."

"Or maybe they did notice but they didn't think anything of it. After all, it's been weeks and I thought it had something to do with me, not with you," Geralt pondered.

"Oh Geralt, don't assume that everybody is as fucking dense as you are," Dandelion remarked with an eye-roll.

Even the composed vampire chuckled a little. Geralt grunted but forgot about his anger quickly when Kit squeezed his hand and finally smiled again.

The rest of the evening was spent theorizing how and why this had happened and what the X-men were.

"I wonder," Kit finally professed, "if it is dangerous, even though it doesn't hurt. After all, we don't know what this energy is or does."

"I wouldn't worry about that. It's energy, not poison," Regis interjected.

"Marie Curie would beg to differ," Kit sighed, her face displaying worry.

"Who is this Marie Curie?" the vampire wondered.

"Marie Sklodowska Curie was a scientist, a brilliant one. She was the only women to ever win two Nobel prizes in two different fields, one of the few scientists who managed to do that." Confused faces looked at her. "Sorry, I forgot. The Nobel Prize is considered to be one of the highest awards in science. If you manage to win it you can be sure you that whatever you discovered is pretty damn important. Anyway, Marie and her husband Pierre experimented with radioactive materials. Except they didn't know it back then. She died of leukemia, very likely caused by radiation poisoning. And radiation, after all, is just energy. But it's the kind of energy you really don't want around you. It mutates and destroys your cells. And when I say mutates," she looked at Geralt, "I'm not talking about mutations that make you better. I'm talking about mutations that simply kill you, slowly, bit by bit."

As if to ensure her, Geralt felt for her hand under the table. He was not afraid. Nothing that felt so good could be any danger. He had come in contact with enough types of poison to be certain about that.

Kit was the first to excuse herself to go to bed. Once his other guests had declared similar intentions, Geralt cautiously went up the stairs to look after her. She was not sleeping but sitting on the bed, staring at the wall in front of her. New ink blotches on her hand told him that she had written into her notebook again.

"May I come in?" he asked hesitantly.

"Always." She looked at him and smiled. With great relief he noted that some liveliness had returned to her eyes.

Geralt sat down on the side of the bed. "How do you feel?"

"Confused, mostly." She beckoned him to come closer and leaned against him. Geralt wove his arm behind her back and rested his chin on her head.

"I feel dead on the inside. It is so strange to have all these memories in my head but hardly any emotional connection to them," Kit continued. "How can this be Geralt? What am I that I am so cold and removed that, after just a few days, I have no feelings anymore towards the family I left behind? What kind of monster am I?" Her voice was hoarse.

"You are not a monster," he whispered. "You are the opposite of a monster. You are kind and caring." He sighed. Being a witcher, he had made his fair share of experiences when it came to being called a monster or emotionless. "Whatever happened here is not your fault."

"What does it feel like?" she suddenly asked. Geralt took her hand, held it to the side of his face and closed his eyes. Her touch was creating ripples of that pleasant feeling which spread across his whole body. "Soothing, warming, relaxing," he listed. "Sometimes powerful, breathtaking," he added. He remembered the overwhelming feeling when they had kissed, tried to recall the memory of her silky tongue in his mouth, and wondered what a more intimate act must feel like. The thought made him want to strip them down, to feel naked skin on skin, and bury himself in her to experience the surge of what he now knew to be energy drive through his entire body. But he did not say any of it as he did not want to pressure her. He was going to wait for her to come to him, make it her decision whenever she was ready.

They stayed silent for a while. Eventually the candle on the bedside table burned down and they fell asleep in a tight embrace.

Dear reader,

do you tell your friends and family that you love them? We don't do that in my family. Not because we don't love each other. We do, we just don't say it out loud. Our love is in what we do for each other, the big things but mostly the small, mundane things. Whenever we ate together my father would wait for the rest of us to fill our plates before he did. Later, when my brother was older, he adopted that same habit. To me this is part of the universal language of love and appreciation.

The morning after the wine festival I woke up in Geralt's embrace. Lying there, enjoying feeling him against me, I started to think about everything that he does that makes me like him so much. I remembered that he, too, always waits for me to take my food first before he helps himself. It made my mind wander off to home, to that specific memory I just told you about.

I realized immediately that something was wrong with it. As if someone had put a filter on top of it. Not like a visible filter you use to make the picture of your food Instagram-worthy. It was some sort of emotional filter that left me with the memory-visuals but not the emotional comfort it should have provided me with. It didn't make me smile anymore, it didn't make me feel loved anymore, it didn't make me happy to have grown up in such a caring, beautiful family anymore. It was a picture and nothing more. Completely neutral with no more meaning attached to it.

I went through my mind and found more memories that had been changed like corrupted files on a computer. And the more time passed, the more the change progressed. There was this song that always made me tear up a little, even if I was in a great mood, because it reminded me of a friend who had let me down badly. Even years later this particular song had a firm grip on me.

I'm recalling it now, I hear the song in the back of my mind. And I don't feel anything. Nothing at all.

I don't understand what's going on. I know I love my friends and family. Or do I? Because I cannot feel it anymore. I remember their faces but I feel nothing when I recall them. So, the current truth is: I feel obligated to love my family, I feel obligated to pretend that I still do.

I didn't dare to write this down last time, basically hoping I was having a stroke or some other neurological malfunction. But I can't deny it any longer. It's gone, it's all gone.

Someone (something?) axed the bridge, the last connection to home. The thing that cemented what I tried to disavow: I'm never going back.

I swore to keep this to myself, being certain that nothing could be done to reverse the situation. There was no point in bothering Geralt with it, I didn't want to force him to console me again. But of course that's exactly what happened anyway.

How can I just forget all these things? At the same time I'm scared, so very scared. Who is messing with me and why? What's more to come? What will be the next thing to leave me? My personality, my health, or will I maybe just die?

I am a hypocrite. I told myself I would make the best out of my situation and I am not doing anything of the sorts. I am crying and nothing but crying.

I had promised to keep my calm, waiting for things to blow over instead of freaking out, but then the bard talked to me and that turned out to be a little too much on that particular evening when I was still trying to digest that I would never return home. His accusations didn't sit very well with me. He's right in calling me out, of course, I do understand his motives. If I was in his place, seeing my friend seemingly be used, I might have been a lot rougher. But at the same time, it felt so outrageously unfair. After all, I didn't choose to come here. I didn't choose to get saved by Geralt. I didn't ask for him to be so kind to me.

I feel heartbroken over not having a home anymore. I feel horrible for not feeling the past anymore. I feel revolting for using Geralt – can mitigating circumstances be applied because I would want to stay with him even if I had a place to go? Under no circumstances do I want him to feel like I am using him. He's too good for that, he deserves better.

And Geralt, that god damn saint, he's just holding me and pretending that me liquifying is an okay thing to do. Quite a presumptuous stance for someone who has never shed a tear in his entire life. Where he takes the patience from I do not know. I hope he's not running out of it anytime soon. The human body is mostly made from water so there is much more water to shed. I guess I'll just shrivel away in his arms. There are worse ways to go, don't you think? Death through dehydration by crying – put my cause of death on my tombstone please. I'm sure it will entertain a few people.

Geralt is warm though. His body is like a campfire in total darkness, keeping me warm when I am lost. Strong arms pressing me against his hard body, oddly comforting. His breath in my neck, his beard scratching the back of my head. It seems for all the past sensations and memories I lost, I am gaining new ones and they are the equivalent of 4k against… I don't know. Those 3-pixel photos we made with the very first camera phones back in the early 2000s where you couldn't tell a bowl of ice cream apart from a dog. The world seems so much more intense whenever he is around.

Dandelion's words stick with me. Did I not care what came before me? He asked me that. I said that I didn't because I didn't think that I had a reason to care, didn't think that I could be to him what they once were. How would I ever be able to compete with these beautiful, powerful sorceresses that enchanted him to a degree that songs were written about them? The thought seems silly. But Dandelion said that I had power too. Is that enough? I am wondering… After all, I was here while all that remained of them were songs.

Dear reader, just so we're clear: I do stick with my Spice Girls quote. I really don't care about his past, jealousy is a waste of time (and I find trying to rationalize it takes a lot of power away from this awful emotion). I simply don't understand what I could possibly have that he wants. That's the part I have difficulties wrapping my head around.

Was him falling asleep in my lap really such a big deal? I can't help but reinterpret Geralt's entire behavior now that Dandelion has put this idea in my head. That kiss that he asked for – not just curiosity? Him, cuddling up against me in his sleep – not just a coincidence? Him offering his hand, his shoulder – not just a mere gesture of comfort? The way he looks after me and at me now is that of a lover and not that of a friend, I'm nearly convinced. He spent a sleepless night to watch over me. He does not at all act like someone who 'wants to be left alone by all those women out there'. Dandelion said it too, so it's certainly not just happening in my head.

Whenever Geralt is worried and consoling me, the pupils of his beautiful golden eyes expand, giving him the air of a big, tame cat. I like that.

And I'm sick of trying to fight my affection for him. I've been finding myself looking for his proximity all the time ever since the wine festival. It's hard to stay away from him, so hard.

I want to just give in but now I'm afraid he'll think that I just want him because I need him, not because I actually want him. I wish I had a way to prove that I want to stay with him because of him and not for a lack of options.

I'm afraid I don't have much time to figure things out. Who knows what's going to happen with me? Maybe soon there won't be anything left of me if they keep messing with my body and mind.

Am I already your favorite overthinker? If not, tell me who the competition is and I will take them out.

But truth be told, if it was not for Geralt I would not want to even exist anymore. I'm so tired of dealing with things, of being helpless.

So maybe just dying is the better option should it turn out that he doesn't want me.

Also, I might be a bit melodramatic. I have talked to the bard for too long, something might have rubbed off. I still don't like him that much but we are getting better.

In other news: Yesterday's strange scarf-returner turned out to be a vampire by the name of Regis (actually he has quite a few names but I forgot all the others). A real vampire, can you imagine? I rather like him, it appears I have the same preference for vampires as for water: non-sparkling. He is so very polite and dignified. A little ritual that he performed lead to at least some insight: I conduct energy. As of now it is uncertain whether or not it is doing anything other than make the recipient feel good. Maybe I can make use of this power somehow? It is all so very uncertain. But I won't lie, it is a welcome distraction. Makes me feel like one of the x-men (though possibly the most useless of them all – I mean, I got the power to tickle someone's skin. What the hell?). I'm also not quite convinced that I'm conducting this strange energy – because that makes it sound like I'm doing something deliberately. If we're being honest, 'leaking' would be a more appropriate term. Someone hand me an interdimensional tampon, please…

All in all, I still do not know what happened or why it happened. I'm giving up hope that I ever will.

New goal: Trying to hold on for a little longer. It is easier to not miss my family so much if the memory of love and security that I felt with them simply disappears. Maybe there is good in that too? After all, negative memories are now nothing more than meaningless pictures, it's not just the good things that have been affected and taken from me.

I hope I can make this work. I hate this sad, confused version of me.

No, you know what, dear reader? Scratch that. I will make this work. I will. I don't know how much time I have left so I better use what I have to make it enjoyable. Focus on the positives and ignore what I can't change.

Are you confused by my inconsistent nature? Yeah? Me too. But we'll have to deal with it.

Kit woke up in the middle of the night. Geralt had, as usually, wrapped himself around her. One of his hands had wandered up her leg, pushing her nightgown to the side, to settle shortly before her middle, holding onto her inner thigh. The feeling left her giddy and unable to sleep. She got up, careful to not wake him, threw a thin woolen coat over her shoulders and left the house.